By Haruna Gimba
The Wife of the Bauchi State Governor, Hajiya Hadiza Abubakar has called on wives of state governors across the country to rise to support” women living with Vesico-Vaginal Fistula (VVF).
Speaking as VVF service providers met with policymakers and governors’ wives in Abuja, Hadiza Abubakar said wives of governors needed to help affected women confront trauma and stigma.
She said: “We need to encourage our women to access the health facilities available so that there will be early detection and treatment of fistulas. One problem is that there is lack of early detection.”
Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, who spoke through the ministry’s director of family health, Dr. Wapada Balami, said the ministry was committed to clearing an existing backlog of thousands of VVF cases in need of surgical repair.
VVF is a condition in which prolonged obstructed labour ruptures a woman’s vaginal wall and creates a hole between it and the rectum or bladder-and it affects up to 12,000 women each year, according to the National Demographic Health Survey.
The prevalence of VVF, compared with only a handful of surgeons nationwide who can repair women with the condition, has ignited push for a national surgery policy targeting common surgeries that are often neglected.
Country Director for Engender Health, which runs Fistula Care Plus, a project to provide treatment, care and rehabilitation for women with fistula, Dr. Habib Sadauki said things as simple as hernia, appendectomy, complications of abortions, fistula are common surgeries that don’t get the required attention, but they can lead to death if left alone.
“If you the policy in place, eventually you will get these surgeries really addressed. There are many things that people tend to ignore but they constitute the bulk of what we do on daily basis,” Dr. Sadauki said.
